The Color of Grief is Gray
by WizardsGirl
Summary: Soulmate AU. In a world where you lose the ability to see all color when your Soulmate dies, Junior Deputy Delilah Rook takes cold comfort in her red-stained hands every day she sets out to aide the Resistance. Until, one day, even that is taken away from her. The color of grief is gray and tastes like ashes in her throat and copper on her tongue.


**A/N:** So, there are many, many, _many_ Soulmate AU's out there, and a lot of them are really good, you know? Interesting or well-written or at least funny, you know?

You know what my favorite Soulmate AUs are? I have a deep, deep, _DEEP_ adoration for Soulmate AUs that are Hurt/Comfort, or just seriously Angsty.

You know what else I love? Originality.

This being said, have a Soulmate AU that's both!

:)

**The Color of Grief is Gray**

Junior Deputy Delilah Rook had never met her Soulmate. She knew they were alive, somewhere out there, her world still filled with color, and, especially now, buried under gunfire and blood-stained hands in this goddamned Holy War, that was the only comfort she was really allowed. She hadn't met them, either, which was a colder comfort she held grimly. She dreaded running into someone, some stranger here during this War, and suddenly having her vision obscured by the sparking lightshow of a Meeting. God, if that happened during a Fire Fight she could just _imagine_ what would happen.

(_More blood on her hands, a river of crimson and copper to drown out her voice, no matter how loudly she pled and cried and __**screamed**__ she was just a goddamned __**rookie! Why **__is no one __**helping her?! **__Why is it__** only her **__why, why, w__**hy, why, WHY?!**_)

Her world was still filled with color, color besides the red that stained her hands even when she scrubbed them raw, that haunted her dreams and woke her in a cold sweat, a scream choked off in her throat and gunfire flashing behind her eyelids. And every time it happened, every time she woke up and fought her way out of her tangled sheets, she'd stagger into the closest bathroom or to the nearest source of water and take comfort in the fact she could still see that her eyes were blue, her hair was red, her freckles tan on her pale face.

As long as she kept her Colors, she didn't feel as alone, didn't regret nearly as much the next time she picked up her gun to coat herself in redredred again for people who cheered her on and hid from the flood of crimson-copper that she spilled at their feet for them.

As long as she had her Colors, as long as she could see them, she could convince herself it was worth it.

(_It wasn't_,_ it really, really wasn't worth it_)

(_Crimson on her hands and copper in her throat and blue eyes in a pale face and no hope of being clean again)_

She had her Colors, and that was all she needed to greet the day with her gun in hand and aimed ahead.

And then she didn't have them anymore.

It had been a standard Outpost take-over. She'd taken out all the Peggies (alone again, her supposed 'back-up' never showing, not that it was surprising, they hardly ever did). She'd gone in and coated her vision and hands in red for Hope County once again, just like she had every day since she put those handcuffs on Joseph Seed's wrists and refused to walk away.

(_Thin silver to protect against the red)_

She'd killed every one in the building and had been hunting for a radio to call it in to the nearest Resistance area, when her head was nearly shot off. Cursing, teeth gritted as she ducked behind a crate, she caught a glimpse of a man in a Peggy sweater hidden behind a chunk of fence. She fired back at him, forced to duck down when he returned it, and they shot at one another for a good couple of minutes before his gun, far less cared for than her own, jammed and she was able to get a chest shot. He gasped, choking on a mouthful of blood as he staggered out of his hiding place to collapse on the ground. He laid there, sprawled, and Rook eventually huffed and turned around to return to her search for that radio-

And, suddenly, her Colors drained away.

Rook froze, eyes wide as she suddenly found herself in a world of nothing but grays, the sky the grass the trees the redredred of blood from the corpses around her and-

(_It Wasn't Worth It_)

Slowly, chest tight and body shaking, she turned around to stare at the Peg-at her _Soulmate_, spread out on the ground and washed of any Color he'd had. Slowly, her limbs made of lead, her heart made of ice, her lungs made of dust, Rook made her way over to him, trembling so hard she'd later be surprised that she didn't shoot herself in the foot.

(_Surprised she didn't shoot herself at all, didn't add to the crimson-copper river that she couldn't see anymore, trapped only in her memories and not on her hands. It wasn't worth it, none of it was worth it, why, why, why __**only her?!**_)

She finds herself sitting beside his body, having turned it on its back and rested his head in her lap, her left hand shakily wiping at the gray splatters around his mouth that she _knew_ were red but she _couldn't tell anymore_. Her right hand was wrapped around her gun, unable to drop it even now, unable to just _put it down and __**walk away**_.

He had a crooked nose. A chipped front tooth. A scar at his left temple that she stroked trembling fingertips over. His jaw had been square and he had a tattoo of a nightingale on the left side of his neck. He was about five foot nine, only an inch or so taller than her, with broad shoulders and wide hands and small feet.

He was beautiful.

And she had killed him.

She sat there with his head in her lap and, eventually, she had to look away, unable to cry for him, for her _Soulmate_, the Soulmate she had _fucking murdered_.

(_She'd never get the red off her skin, stained with it forever and ever, even when it wasn't red anymore it would always be the same crimson-copper stain on her __**Soul**_)

She stared straight ahead, her left hand stroking trembling fingertips over that scar and her right hand clutching her gun.

Hours passed.

The sun started to set.

...The world was so dark without her Colors. Dark and bleak and hollow.

(_Just. Like. __**Her**__.)_

A car pulled up, the sound of slamming doors and raised voices. She didn't move, fingertips on the scar and gun in hand and eyes staring bleakly at the graygraygray of the sun set. A voice, someone demanding something. She didn't move. Eventually, the voice retreated, anger turning to wariness to confusion behind her, more voices, the crackle of a radio.

More time passed, meaningless.

The world grew darker.

Another car, more doors shutting, murmured voices and anxious gasps and uncertain whispers.

The crunch of footsteps on gravel behind her, then to the side, slowly circling her until a familiar face in unfamiliar shades of gray stooped in front of her, blocking out the view of the gray sun setting in the gray sky on a gray wasteland she'd painted crimson-copper for _nothing_.

Joseph Seed peered at her calmly, quietly, behind his washed-out Ray-Bans and Rook was too empty to be surprised.

"My Child..." his voice trailed off, his eyes dropping to where her left hand continued to slowly stroke over her Soulmate's temple, to where her right hand remained cramped tight around her gun. She stared at him, face blank and empty and everything cold.

(_It had never been worth it. She'd just been lying to herself. Lying to everyone. And now, there were no lies to hide behind. The truth was gray and drowned out the crimson-copper river following her footsteps and stained her hands like ink._)

"...Are you injured, My Child?" Joseph asked her, eyes returning to her own, not a hint of his thoughts in the washed-out pale grays. Rook stared at him, unmoving, empty as a doll and twice as cold. Joseph sighed quietly, softly, and reached towards her face, and Rook didn't twitch, couldn't even get her face to move, as he gently cupped her face with his hands, peering at her solemnly. "Your Wrath has run its course," he told her softly, sadly. "You've destroyed all that has come across your Path, spread your Wrath upon all that you touched, and refused to abandon your Pride. And this is the result," he breathed to her softly, achingly, his eyes once again lowering to the corpse in her lap, before letting out another sigh and leaning forward to press his forehead against hers, the washed-out Ray-Bans and his now-gray eyes blocking the rest of the world from her sight.

"For the sake of your _Soul_, Child," he breathed, quietly earnest and sternly fierce, the voice of an angry father, of _the Father_. "I beg you. _Atone_." Rook stared at him blankly, unblinking, fingers never stilling. After several long seconds, the fingers on her cheeks never going hard, the eyes before her never darkening in anger, Rook and the Father stared one another down in silence, and Immovable Object meeting an Unstoppable Force, until, with a low, quiet sigh, Rook closed her eyes and pressed her forehead back against his own.

There wasn't any point in fighting him anymore.

(_None of it was __**worth it**_.)

Joseph let out a soft breath, a relieved sound, and stroked her face tenderly, before slowly pulling away. He pressed a kiss to her forehead and then leaned back, expression tender and sad and washed-out eyes unreadable still.

"I will leave you to grieve, while preparations are made," he murmured. "I will not leave you, however. You are not Alone, my Child." He told her firmly, intensely, and Rook could only stare up at him in silence. He held out his hand, face set, mouth a stern line. "But please, hand me the gun now," he told her quietly. "For your own safety, and my peace of mind, my Child. Please." Rook stared, her fingers tightening around the hold of the gun in her hand, instinctively unwilling to lose yet another piece of herself.

(_The redredredof her hands now stained forever with ink and the world washed of the crimson-copper river of her foot steps but the gun is still gray, still coldcoldcold death-bringer, her little Horseman that comes with a __**bang**__ and leaves only the shuddering gasp of the End behind it_)

She hands him the gun.

She has no need for it, anyways.

It wasn't worth keeping.

(_It was never worth it_)

Joseph thanks her solemnly, handing the gun to a nearby Faithful, and left her there with her Soulmate's corpse, his blood long-since gone cold and tacky on her skin. She turns her eyes once more to the bleak, gray-scale sunset as the murmurs of voices and crackling of the radio sound. She stares forward when one of the Faithful hesitantly approach, and cautiously removes their own jacket to set it gently on her shoulders. She doesn't move or make a sound, staring at the disappearing sun as the world grew darker and colder and into a wasteland of nothingness before her eyes.

Vaguely, she wonders if Joseph's so-called Collapse isn't a ball of fiery death at all, like he believes, but the sudden leaching of color form the world as all are made equal and hopeless at once, all but those few Joseph manage to 'save'.

(_There is no Saving her. She is Beyond Redemption. She is Wrath and she is Death and her footprints track crimson-copper rivers and her hands are redredred and stained forever, the feel of a temple scar under her fingertips and the memory of a short, choked gasp all that remains before the Void with the echoing crack of the Horseman's __**bang**__ to keep her company until it claims her as well_)

Vaguely, distantly, she wishes she'd kept the gun, longed for the narrow barrel to kiss her own temple in the same place as her Soulmate's scar and wash away this grayscale nightmare in a flare of light and height and the smell of gunpowder in her nose.

(_A fitting Fate: killed by the same gun by the same hand on the same day. A Murderer's Fate. The only thing she deserves._)

Time passes, how much is unclear, but suddenly she is being gently coaxed to her feet, her Soulmate's body gently wrapped with the others she'd murdered, and Joseph's arm wrapped around her shoulders. And then, she's in a truck, pinned between Joseph's arm and body and the body of a Faithful, who tentatively took her hand in his own and let her trace the memory of her Soulmate's scar against the back of it. She still can't cry, her entire Being numb, washed out like the world she now saw.

She lost more time as they drove, mind blank and quiet and graygraygray.

She blinks, slowly, when the truck comes to a stop, lifting her gaze from the dashboard to find that they were at a bunker, the Valley Bunker if she remembered, and that John was waiting impatiently for them on the lawn, his Chosen scattered around him, armed and watchful and protective and devote, and Rook let out a slow, quiet sigh as Joseph coaxed her from the car to stand numbly beside him as he lead her to his little brother. He left her briefly bereft in the sea of gray, to greet John affectionately, tracing his hands over his brother's arms to grip his forearms steadily, foreheads pressed together, eyes closed. When they pulled apart, he returned to her, gently coaxing her after his brother as they moved into the Bunker.

She lost time again, because suddenly they were in a well-lit room, with a lonely looking chair and a workbench covered in tools and Josephs hands on her face once more.

"John will take your Confession, my Child," he told her quietly, calmly. "He will take your Confession, and pull the Sins from your Soul. You will reach Atonement. You Will Be Saved," he intoned, voice strong and unflinchingly True and Rook could only breath quietly, and close her eyes.

"...Yes... Father..." she murmured, voice hoarse and dull and as washed-out as her vision. Something flashed in Josephs eyes, a quicksilver light that was there and gone again, before he pressed their foreheads together and shared her air with her. After a moment, he pulled back, kissed her forehead, and left her there with John, closing the door behind him with a soft click that would have felt final had she not had the echo of her Soulmate's last breath drowning it out in her head. Silently, numbly, she moved forward, ignoring John's roguish grin and barely noticing him falter at her blank gaze as she slowly sat in the chair and didn't move as he cautiously cuffed her wrists and ankles.

"Let's begin, shall we, my dear?" He cooed, grinning at her even as he brushed a hand against her cheek, tucking a loose bit of hair behind her ear as he pulled his stool over to perch between her knees, the outer parts of his thighs pressing firmly along the inner parts of her own. "I want you to start at the beginning, all the way through. Don't skimp on the details either, sweetie. We need to carve open those festering old wounds, the beginning of your Sins, before we can rip the poison from your Soul." He leaned forward as he spoke, blade in hand, and tenderly, gently, cut her shirt open. Rook stared at him blankly, numbly, for several long moments, before closing her eyes and leaning back, offering no resistance.

"The first time I fired a gun," she murmured, eyes closed, "was the day I tried to arrest Joseph. I killed nine people."

(_None of it was Worth It. And it Never had been. The world was graygraygray and she was still stained with blood, black like ink and tarnishing every breath she took and everything she touched. None of it was Worth It. None of It..._

_Should have just walked away and left it be in that little church with Amazing Grace still humming through the air, and a shirtless preacher with Hellfire in his eyes._

_Should have just walked away before her footprints left behind crimson-copper floods and her hands were redredred and her eyes were still blue and the world was still Colored._

_Should have just __**Walked. Away.**_

...But she hadn't. And this was the Price God had Named. And she would **pay it**.)

**A/N:** And ending it here because I'll be considering a "sequel" for this later but for now:  
Fin!


End file.
